6 research outputs found
Large-scale Perturbations from the Waterfall Field in Hybrid Inflation
We estimate large-scale curvature perturbations from isocurvature
fluctuations in the waterfall field during hybrid inflation, in addition to the
usual inflaton field perturbations. The tachyonic instability at the end of
inflation leads to an explosive growth of super-Hubble scale perturbations, but
they retain the steep blue spectrum characteristic of vacuum fluctuations in a
massive field during inflation. The power spectrum thus peaks around the
Hubble-horizon scale at the end of inflation. We extend the usual delta-N
formalism to include the essential role of these small fluctuations when
estimating the large-scale curvature perturbation. The resulting curvature
perturbation due to fluctuations in the waterfall field is second-order and the
spectrum is expected to be of order 10^{-54} on cosmological scales.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; v2 comments added on application of delta-N
formalism including Hubble scale fluctuation
Unconventional Cosmology
I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current
inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a
non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction.
The second is an "emergent" scenario, which can be implemented in the context
of "string gas cosmology". I will compare these scenarios with the inflationary
one and demonstrate that all three lead to an approximately scale-invariant
spectrum of cosmological perturbations.Comment: 45 pages, 10 figures; invited lectures at the 6th Aegean Summer
School "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology", Chora, Naxos, Greece, Sept.
12 - 17 2012, to be publ. in the proceedings; these lecture notes form an
updated version of arXiv:1003.1745 and arXiv:1103.227
Cytoplasmic glycoengineering enables biosynthesis of nanoscale glycoprotein assemblies
Glycosylation of proteins profoundly impacts their physical and biological properties. Yet our ability to engineer novel glycoprotein structures remains limited. Established bacterial glycoengineering platforms require secretion of the acceptor protein to the periplasmic space and preassembly of the oligosaccharide substrate as a lipid-linked precursor, limiting access to protein and glycan substrates respectively. Here, we circumvent these bottlenecks by developing a facile glycoengineering platform that operates in the bacterial cytoplasm. The Glycoli platform leverages a recently discovered site-specific polypeptide glycosyltransferase together with variable glycosyltransferase modules to synthesize defined glycans, of bacterial or mammalian origin, directly onto recombinant proteins in the E. coli cytoplasm. We exploit the cytoplasmic localization of this glycoengineering platform to generate a variety of multivalent glycostructures, including self-assembling nanomaterials bearing hundreds of copies of the glycan epitope. This work establishes cytoplasmic glycoengineering as a powerful platform for producing glycoprotein structures with diverse future biomedical applications.</p